THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has been registering all Guyanese citizens, 14 years and above, to create a new national database from which a list of electors could be extracted. GECOM has chosen as a preferred mechanism to get accurate information a process of house-to-house registration. This process is well under way, and has seen an estimated 80,000 persons being registered so far.

However, the opposition has made this house-to-house registration (H2H) sound like a dreaded disease or plague. H2H is made to look like the H1N1 virus. Opposition supporters were advised to lock out and chase away the 9,000-strong contingent of registration officers, most of whom are young, first-time, temporary employees. These agents have been victims of threats and, in some cases, objects against whom dogs ought to be let loose.

POTENTIAL ELECTORS
The opposition campaign reminds me of a vignette in the epic movie, “The Ten Commandments,” when Moses said to his brother, Aaron, “close the door and let death pass,” as a pestilence crawled in the streets, killing all first-born including, paradoxically, Pharaoh’s own son. Many of the potential electors in upcoming elections in Guyana would be first-time voters – first-born.

The opposition has resorted to deceit and mis-information to sabotage the registration process. Its broad sheet yesterday screamed that the “PNC will support decision to scrap H2H registration” in what was a crude and vulgar distortion of what Dr. George Norton, the party’s vice-chairman, had said.

Earlier, the headline of the state-owned Guyana Chronicle welcoming the appointment of the new GECOM Chairman, Madam Justice Claudette Singh, was photo-shopped to say that the new chair would halt the H2H. Now, there are fresh legal challenges against voter registration, in what appears to be a desperate attempt to undo the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which explicitly acknowledged the constitutional role of GECOM over the preparation and conduct of elections.

JUMBIES EVERYWHERE
The opposition is scared of this process as if it had seen a jumbie. In fact, it is seeing jumbies everywhere, the latest in the terrifying hordes are Haitians. The opposition leader has described the arrival of Haitians in Guyana as a “massive people-smuggling racket.”
The statistics show that between January 1, 2019 and July 30, 2019, some 135,220 persons of 11 nationalities arrived in Guyana. Of those numbers, 41,272 were Cuban nationals. No protests were made over Cuban arrivals, or departures. A full-page ad from an anonymous interest has been appearing in a section of the print media, complaining about a reduced number of Cubans coming here for shopping.

During the past seven months 45,994 American nationals arrived. No protests have been made. Arrivals from Trinidad and Tobago numbered 11,119. No protest. But 8,476 Haitians arrived, and the leader of the opposition singled them out as being at the centre of “a massive people-smuggling racket”.

CARICOM CITIZENS
The Haitians are not coming to Guyana illegally. They are citizens of a CARICOM-member state. They have benefitted from an Immigration Order that was unanimously approved by regional Heads of Government in July, 2018 to allow them an automatic six-month stay in all CARICOM member states. It has been long accepted by our leaders that CARICOM should build bridges, not walls.

The opposition wants Guyana to keep out Haitians. Their claim is that the Haitians are being encouraged to migrate to Guyana to be registered to vote in Guyana’s elections. The adage “he who alleges must prove” is conveniently ignored, which makes this mischief xenophobic, intended only to build hatred again Haitians as Blacks.

I read the other day a column by a self-annointed Indian activist, who roared lamentably that during the 2015 elections the PPP lost votes from its “traditional Indian constituency,” but since then, he added, those voters have returned “home.” For these elements, the PPP owns Indo-Guyanese, and it is evident that the targeting of Afro-Haitians as potential vote riggers is intended to send fears and insecurity among Indians and at the same time, to fortify the “home” against outsiders.

POLITICAL SCAPEGOATS
Haitians are today being used as political scapegoats by people who should know that Guyana had once shared the despicable faith of Haiti as the two poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Besides, we shared a pariah status of having, under the post-Jagan period, the most corrupt governments in the Region.

Former PPP regimes had made incestuous alliances with deadly, local drugs cartels such as the notorious “phantom squad,” which resembled Haiti’s Tonton Macoutes under the dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier. They were both involved in extra-judicial killings.
Before, as well as during that period which President Granger labelled as “The Troubles,” Guyanese were voting with their feet. They became economic refugees in every other CARICOM state, and in North America, much the same as an earlier exodus from the British West Indies to the United Kingdom that became known as the “Windrush Generation.”
Today, it is unfortunate that some elements are picking on Haitians who have been fleeing from their perennial and seemingly never-ending tragedies of one type or the other — from natural disasters, diseases and dictatorship — and who transit in Guyana.
Haitians speak French and the nearest French territory on the shoulder of South America is French Guiana. It is possible that with the non-functioning of the M.V.Canawaima between official ports of entry in Guyana and Suriname, that more persons are using the so-called back-track to make the crossing, and to travel onwards.

SAFE AND SMOOTH DEPARTURE
While I agree that the departure of Haitians should be better monitored, it does not suggest that we should rush to judgment that they are either being trafficked to Guyana or are here to register as voters. We need solid proof, not idle speculation. At the same time, every effort ought to be made by government agencies to encourage and facilitate the safe and smooth departure of Haitian visitors at designated ports of exit, either to Suriname or Brazil.

All peoples have a right to dream for the better life, however and wherever that could be attained. In her prize-winning novel, The Bluest Eye, Tony Morison told the poignant story of a young Black girl who dreamt about having blue eyes. She wanted to be like Mary Jane. She could not be, yet she had a right to dream and to be.

It is also unfortunate that the people-smuggling claim has been made whilst the people of African ancestry in the Caribbean were celebrating Emancipation from slavery. C L R James in the Black Jacobins described with graphic details the agonies, the pain, the sufferings and also the resistance of Africans in Haiti. Their travail never seems to end. For them emigration could be a form of resistance to their harsh conditions of life, and Guyanese who have experienced hardships must let our compassion, not suspicion, guide us.